Darkness, Audible
by fiesa
Summary: In the space between waking and sleeping is only darkness. OneShot – Frau. Something's missing.


**Darkness, Audible**

_Summary: You lost him. You lost him. OneShot – Frau. Something's missing._

_Warning: Yes, the titles are similar. _

_Set: During (or around) Ch. 72 – Déjà-Vu._

_Disclaimer: Standards apply. _

* * *

The horror of the words lay in the fact that they carry so many different meanings.

_You lost him._

_You lost him._

_You lost him._

Like a black thorn of poison it buries itself deeper and deeper into him, into the bruised, battered, crumpled and dried thing he thought his heart had been. Now he learns – once again and so very painful – that it is anything but.

_Damn brat._

Frau never asked for pity. But it's not pity Teito has shown him and it's not fear or horror or disgust. It is also not the respect the boy shows Frau as his mentor and bishop, the worry he expresses at Frau's well-being or the sorrow he can read in his soul. It is the unconditional love the boy harbors towards him, plain for the world to see on his open and honest face and which Frau can read in his heart and feels in his words. And though he knows this is the way the boy is – the way Teito feels towards the whole world, towards all people – he has basked in the warmth of it.

_Damn idiot._

And with this, he does not mean the boy.

_You lost him._

He was there, right behind him. And then he wasn't there anymore. Frau can feel the scythe calling out for blood, screaming in crazed fury for the beauty of a soul Frau has sworn to protect and failed to. He feels it at the back of his mind, in the black, black place it has been since he received it. It seems to be mocking him and yet he does not have the strength to do anything against it. Against Verloren, he is nothing. Merely a puppet, a marionette like Castor's wooden sisters, held together by a thin cord of memories and the will of someone else. Frau used to believe it was the Heaven's Lord's will. Now he is inclined to believe what his heart, his mind and his body all tell him: There is no God. Or, if there is one, he does not care for the human beings at all. Instead, Frau's soul is tethered to life by a golden string of light that came into existence the day an unconscious boy fell from the sky and caused Frau to crash his Hawkzile, and from there, many many more threads have started to develop.

_You are my light._

How strange how much it hurts, this blackened piece of flesh and muscle that hasn't beat for years now. _You lost him. _You lost his light and his eyes and his smile, his over-eagerness, his cry-baby_ishness_, his unselfishness, his innocence despite his upbringing. The list goes on longer and longer and he has to force himself to understand, even if he does not believe. There still might be a way, there still could be a chance. A tiny, insignificantly small chance that Ayanami did not kill him directly, that the limp figure Verloren carried off wasn't dead but merely unconscious. There still is a hope so fragile Frau does not dare to believe, neither with his brain nor with his dead and shattered heart. But hearts are a strange thing.

_For one of the Seven Ghosts, you are extremely stupid._

Frau's heart says Teito is _not_ dead. Frau's heart says that there might be a way, might be a chance, a _hope_ even, that the person he longs for to protect is still alive. Frau's heart says he does not care about loyalty and duty, not for the world, the Heavenly God or even Verloren, when it comes to the one person that has shown him such unconditional trust and love. Frau's heart screams out again and again and for once in his life, he has no inclination other than to follow it to the bitter end. Perhaps he is being stupid, perhaps he would lose his own life rather than saving another one. Frau's heart says that Pandora's box and Verloren's soul don't matter to him at all. What matters is the fragile body that represents the first and contains the latter, the beautiful soul that has brought light into his darkness without being asked for and without asking for anything in return.

_You lost him._

Frau experienced pain and loss before. But it was never as bad as it was this time. It shows him how much he has come to see in Teito and how much the brat means to him. Which might be a stupid idea, regarding the fact that Teito is a human being and Frau is… Frau is…

Frau is Frau. And still. Oh, and so, so still.

The words go around in his head again and again and again. He does not sleep, because he does not need to. He rests, his body and his brain rest while his heart yearns for something that never was supposed to be. But it is too late for that. His eyes are closed and in front of them he sees him. Teito, again and again. He shouldn't be that close. He shouldn't be that far away. He shouldn't be there. Frau sees him laughing and crying, smiling and angry, sees him beat and fighting and victorious and happy. Sees a boy far too precious for a shattered soul like him. His heart yearns for him, nevertheless.

_You lost him._

_Get him back._


End file.
